- James Kouzes and Barry Posner
Good Day EWI!
It does indeed seem like the two weeks since I last posted. My apologies for not posting last week but this is rather hard via an iPad. It is hard to imagine a week ago I was in Mexico, but true. We had a glorious week in Cabo San Lucas returning early Sunday morning. I then had a mad dash trip to Montreal on business, back late Tuesday night. Wednesday was full of emails and catching up and I also had the pleasure of being the guest speaker at our Chapter meeting. Suddenly, it is Friday once again, which I will not complain about at all!
As I grow older I am always amazed at what a small world it truly is and how everyone, regardless of where we come from or what we do for a living, can connect. While at our resort in Cabo we made friends with a wonderful couple from New Jersey and had the pleasure of dining with them on a couple of nights as well as spending a day touring with them. They lost everything in Hurricane Sandy and have been staying with friends since. They had booked this trip as a late honeymoon before the storm and thought that regardless of how dire and depressing their lives have been since the storm, they needed to get away from it all. It was uncanny watching them slowly relax, rejuvenate and come back to a position of positive thoughts about their future. Meeting them literally changed our whole vacation and helped us to create some incredible memories. If you ever get to Cabo, be sure to dine at Sunset Mona Lisa (one of the top five places in the world to watch the sunset). We experienced something majestic together that will forever create a bond between us. We connected deeply by pure happenstance and now have two new amazing friends that we cannot wait to see again! I have to share the sunset with you now too:
As I was going through security in Montreal for my flight home, I happened to run into a cousin of mine that I have not seen in about 10 years. Thankfully, we had time to grab a coffee and have a quick catch up before our respective flights. The thing was, I recognized him first and while we are not close with his family, I took the chance and thought, why not introduce myself and re-connect? I could have walked away and found some peace and quiet, but chose to engage instead. We had a great visit and I was able to share with him some family history that he was curious about and he updated me on his siblings.
So, if all that connecting was not enough, today I had my first call with a Corporate Board member of International Executives Association and this is going to be HUGE for EWI's growth in the future! I will be attending an IEA Calgary Chapter meeting on the 06Feb and then meeting afterwards with two of their corporate board members, who just happen to live in Calgary to discuss and create a plan on how we can properly align the two organizations to allow us to both aid in one another's growth objectives. Next step will be to identify a mutual date for me to sit down with their Corporate President and Executive Director, who both happen to reside in Edmonton. In just a short hour long conversation we were able to really delve into the issues and opportunities facing both of our associations while recognizing the synergy that already exists. Again - it all came down to listening and deeply connecting with one another.
So, lesson learnt for me this week? Grab hold of every opportunity that presents itself to reach out and meet or reconnect with others. You just never know what rewards are waiting!
Have a wonderful weekend EWI!
K
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